A shocking development in the ongoing attempt by Broadcom to takeover Qualcomm in a hostile way has finally been put to rest. The US government's Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) advised the President Donald Trump to put a stop to it. The reaction was swift, as the US government ordered both Broadcom and Qualcomm to put an end to the matter, immediately.

The following statement was issued:

Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today received a Presidential Order to immediately and permanently abandon the proposed takeover of Qualcomm by Broadcom Limited (NASDAQ: AVGO).

A Presidential Order is a big deal in the US and under its terms, all of Broadcom’s director nominees are also disqualified from standing for election as directors of Qualcomm. So, the Trump driven government is not kidding.

Broadcom is reviewing the Order. Broadcom strongly disagrees that its proposed acquisition of Qualcomm raises any national security concerns.

Qualcomm was also ordered to re-convene its 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders at the earliest possible date. Based on the required 10-day notice period, the new stockholders meeting is scheduled for March 23, 2018. All stockholders of record on January 8, 2018 will be entitled to vote at the meeting, but not for Broadcom nominees, as the government doesn’t want them to.

Kepp the crucial IP in US

As Fudzilla previous stated, the US government is concerned of giving crucial technology to the Singapore based company. Yes, we do know that Tan Hook, the CEO of Broadcom promised to take the company back to the US - the possible close ties between Singapore and China were too risky for the US government.

Qualcomm is clearly one of the leaders in 5G and when it comes to US based companies it will be Qualcomm and Intel trailing behind it with Apple having the only 5G mobile solution. US authorities are concerned that Huawei is a real player in 5G, is definitely close to China and the other 5G NR concerned, Samsung is definitely close to South Korea. Since the US government has already raised its concerns against Huawei, it is hard to believe that they would trust this company with the future of 5G.

China concerns

China has some global players that have changed the world. Let’s mention just a few like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent Holdings Limited (WeChat). China has Huawei - a company that can offer end to end 5G solutions and will enter many markets including its native China and big chunks of eastern Europe.

Qualcomm, is of course, not only about 5G, there are some world class ideas about touch servers/artificial intelligence/machine learning, mobile phones and ARM based Windows PCs, IoT, wireless communication, RF and front end as well as automotive, infrastructure, Medical and - most likely less advertised - military and governmental parts too. It is hard to understand how people at the street are clueless about the potential of Qualcomm, but that is another story all together. Time will teach these guys that there is a lot of great things coming from San Diego - so big that they can give both Intel and Nvidia a run for their money, even in AI and automotive.

Broadcom is a company that makes less splashier products and very conservative PR and marketing, but it has grabbed a large portion of the RF and wireless market. RF (Radio Frequency) is the part of the phone that takes care of multimode, multiband RF transceivers, RF Front End radio front-end components and many other antenna driven parts of the phones that don’t get enough attention in the media. Without RF, phones would not work on either WiFi, 2G, 3G, 4G.

Qualcomm will stay close to China based companies. It supplies its Snapdragon processors to many China based companies. The big six of China, Lenovo, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, ZTE and Wingtech are committed to have Snapdragon powered 5G NR devices in 2019.

One can only hope that this is the final end of the saga and that both companies can continue their own separate ways.

Industry veteran journalist Kyle Bennet wrote back in December that Intel might launch a CPU powered by Radeon technology. This happens in the middle of the last quarter when Nvidia and Intel's cross licensing GPU deal is about to expire.

Just recently, Kyle said that there might be a CPU with Radeon coming this year but more important is that from April 1, Intel will not have a valid GPU license from Nvidia or AMD. None of the three companies spoke publicly about a possible GPU licensing deal and as far as Fudzilla is aware Nvidia hasn't reached a deal with Intel to extend the licensing.

As part of the original deal and the terms and conditions of the patent cross license agreement, Intel agreed to pay Nvidia licensing fees which in the aggregate will amount to $1.5 billion, payable in annual installments, as follows: a $300 million payment on each of January 18, 2011, January 13, 2012 and January 15, 2013 and a $200 million payment on each of January 15, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

The original document states that “Capture Period” shall mean any time on or prior to March 31, 2017 indicating that this is the last date where the license is still valid.

There are a few possible scenarios going forward and one very likely and that Fudzilla suggested a while ago, is that AMD will license its GPU technology to Intel and get some much-needed cash. Nvidia is always the more expensive choice. If you have been following Nvidia and AMD long enough you will recognize the pattern that both PlayStation and Xbox stayed away from Nvidia simply as AMD was the more affordable choice. Good fellow Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO of Nvidia is all about making more money, something that resulted in a surge in the stock price.

AMD doesn’t want to talk about it. Fudzilla asked many contacts inside the company on and off the record, but no one seems to want to touch this touchy topic. Where there is smoke, there might be fire, one might imply.

The bottom line is that Intel needs a license or it faces a potential lawsuit. If it gets the GPU patent licensing from AMD, Nvidia would probably stay away from potential legal action.

Nvidia and AMD borrow GPU related ideas from each other left and right and center and we are quite sure that they don’t plan to sue each other for the GPU related patents anytime soon.

We would expect to see some announcements related to a potential AMD – Intel deal in the next few months. While many will argue that AMD is hardly going to benefit from it, making Intel a bigger competitor and losing the edge on the GPU performance lead, AMD would be making some additional cash, something that it desperately needs.

Nvidia was confident that it could pressure Samsung and Qualcomm into some kind of licensing dea and started a legal battle in September 2014. However not it appears that the battle is over and with a disappointing result.

Nvidia didn’t want to discuss any further details and all the company is saying at this time the agreement covers the licensing of a small number of patents by each company to another, but no broad cross-licensing of patents or other compensation. "

When it all started in September 2014, Nvidia was after Samsung and Qualcomm claiming they had breached United States Patent Nos. 6,198,488, 6,992,667, 7,038,685, 7,015,913, 6,697,063, 7,209,140 and 6,690,372.

For ages, Nvidia only mentioned Samsung in the lawsuit and stopped talking about Qualcomm. In September 2015 judge ruled that Samsung and Qualcomm actually didn’t infringe two of the patents.

The outcome of this multimillion legal battle was not as lucrative as the licensing deal with Intel. Nvidia appears to have wanted to replace the $1.5 billion it received from the Intel cross licensing agreement, which is about to expire. Since January 2011 Intel agreed to pay Nvidia $1.5 billion and Chipzilla has almost paid up. Nvidia probably hoped to get the licensing money from Samsung too. Even if the deal means that Nvidia will end up getting some financial compensation, it won't be as exciting the Intel one from 2011.

Chipmaker Imagination has launched a new suite of Ensigma IP solutions which cover Wi-Fi/Bluetooth software, MAC baseband, AFE and RF for the Internet of Things.

Imagination will supply RPUs to those who want the solution from a third party instead of making it themselves, and it can also provide them with RF IP, if they need it for their products, the outfit said.

Imagination offers complete connectivity products which encourages customers to be more interested in buying other gear to match.

Imagination has partnered with some RF providers, but it's also working with RF technology that was built in-house by some of its customers, to ensure these technologies are compatible with its Ensigma basebands.

Customers who don't already have their own RF technology can license Imagination's own Ensigma RF, either as IP blocks for SoC integration or for standalone use.

One of these customers is Toshiya Matsui, general manager of Toshiba who said he used multiple Imagination IP cores in its highly integrated IoT processors.

"This includes the Ensigma Explorer RPU that provides the high-speed Wi-Fi which is a hallmark of these processors. The fact that Imagination also offers RF made it easy for us to take these processors into production."

Chakra Parvathaneni, vice president of Ensigma business operations at Imagination, said that more connectivity solutions will become integrated into the SoC.Imagination has been preparing for this transition with the "world's most complete end-to-end connectivity IP solutions from RF to baseband."

Ensigma Explorer and the lower powered Whisper RPU families were shipping in their millions.

Insigma connectivity IP is licensed under three different IP subsystems:

Ensigma Whisper Wi-Fi 802.11n 1×1 which is a subsystem for wearables, home automation, and healthcare.

Ensigma Whisper Bluetooth Smart and 802.15.4 which is a subsystem for wearables and IoT sensors

Electronic Arts is saving up its “creative bullets” for the next generation consoles, according to EA COO, Peter Moore. In an interview with Wired’s GameLife, Moore said, “…there’s no place for new IP this late in the console cycle.”

Moore explained that, “He can’t think of new IP that launches five or six years into a generation of hardware that is successful. It’s just not the time to do it.”

The comments made by Moore are interesting on a number of levels and it gives us something to look forward to with the next generation of consoles on the horizon. While Moore does not hint at anything specific, sources tell us that EA has a number of new titles planned for the next round of consoles, and this will likely include at least some reimagined IP from back in the day that EA owns the rights to.

A top British court has told Facebook that it will have to reveal the identity of those who sent a Brighton woman abusive messages about a post on The X Factor's Frankie Cocozza. It is the first case where an individual has successfully taken legal action against Facebook to reveal the identities of cyberbullies.

Nicola Brookes was granted a high court order after receiving "vicious and depraved" abuse on Facebook. She posted a comment in support of the former The X Factor contestant Frankie Cocozza, who was falsely branded a paedophile and drug dealer by anonymous Facebook users who set up a fake profile page on the website.

She wanted to bring a private prosecution against at least four alleged internet trolls, but was stopped by Facebook. Now Facebook must now reveal the names, emails and IP addresses of those behind the abusive messages, showing who they are and where they posted from.

Facebook has not yet received the court order but has said it will comply when it does. The order was given backing at the high court on 30 May and must now be physically served on Facebook in the US, where the social network is based.

Cocozza was a young singer who was evicted from X Factor last year. Apparently it mattered to people.

British ISP O2 was ordered by the Chancery Division of the British High Court to hand over the customer details belonging to a portion of 9,124 IP addresses. The addresses used BitTorrent clients to download porn created by the British Ben Dover Productions.

Golden Eye who was acting on behalf of Ben Dover compiled the list of the more than 9,000 IP addresses it claims have illegally downloaded its copyrighted material. Golden Eye will be sending letters only to those O2 customers that may have illegally downloaded Ben Dover Productions films.

Golden Eye demanded the right to ask for £700 per illegal downloader, but the High Court refused and said that Golden Eye must allow O2 customers the opportunity to show they have not committed copyright infringement. If they indeed illegally downloaded Ben Dover Productions' porn, remittance for infringement would be negotiated on a defendant-by-defendant basis.

Activision has not told us anything that we didn’t already know, but has confirmed that Bungie is “making incredible progress” on their new universe for the new IP that they are working on. It is still top-secret, and everyone is very excited to see what Bungie can do after Halo.

Activision is expecting the new IP when it is released to be a significant genre-defining IP that will be a strategic growth pillar for the future of the company. This is some high praise for a title that is still a long way from release.

No information was given during the earnings call as to when we might expect to see this new IP, or when it is expected to be released. However, based on this call, Activision seems confident in Bungie’s ability to deliver.

Sony really came out of nowhere with its announcement of a new exclusive title for the PlayStation family. It was much unexpected when a trailer from Naughty Dog was shown for new IP called Last of Us. While we know that it will be a PlayStation 3 release to start with, no date was announced as to when it was being targeted.

The game itself looks to be a survival action type of title that is taking place in a world decimated by some sort of biological plague. Being a Naughty Dog title, the look and feel seems to have many elements from the Uncharted series with a different story, but the trailer was compelling.

The title has been in development for some time. The game is being headed by a team run by Bruce Stanley and Neil Drukmann. It is also the first time that Naughty Dog has had a second IP offering during the same hardware generation.

Microsoft is telling the US Federal Trade Commission that it needs to think about the poor Internet Marketers before changing the rules on data retention. Microsoft's Bing holds onto IP addresses for six months and cookies for a year and half and claims that this is the best thing for everyone.

Microsoft, who just introduced a 'Do Not Track' feature in the newly released Internet Explorer 9 Web browser, has generally endorsed changes suggested by the FCC. The FCC wants only light regulation but at the same time is under pressure to come up with something that protects user privacy.

The FTC released its set of proposed rules, "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change" in December to address the privacy issues that have arisen in the Internet Age. Redmond “urges the Commission to avoid imposing prescriptive requirements with respect to data retention periods or in further defining 'specific business purpose' or 'need.'” It said that the FTC needs to balance privacy with “accommodating and encouraging evolving or innovative technologies and business models over time.”